Objective: The goal of a good class discussion is to help students gain a deeper understanding of the material. Talking about the material can help to solidify your understanding of the reading, help you to store information in your long-term memory, and gain new insights as your peers and teacher share their perspectives. There are, however, many skills you can develop through speaking and listening that are vital in helping you become an analytical thinker.
Orient Yourself:
1. What is the purpose of this discussion? (e.g. to share opinions? to critique? to review?)
2. What is my role in class discussion?
3. How can I tell which parts of this discussion are important for me?
Think Analytically
1. What are the most important ideas from the discussion?
2. How are participants supporting their ideas with evidence?
3. How can I connect the content of this discussion to other concepts?
Habits of Success
A good discussion participant:
1. Comes prepared to discuss the material (make certain you have done the reading and have taken some notes on points you believe are important to discuss).
2. Listens attentively to other students’ responses and understandings
3. Verbally engages other students’ ideas by asking questions that relate to other students’ observations
4. Uses text or data to support claims, interpretations, and opinions of the topic
5. Uses discussion as an opportunity to practice constructing arguments
6. Appropriately monitors his or her own contributions to discussion
7. Works to ensure each perspective is respected while not verbally attacking those whose ideas/opinions differ from yours
Objective: To effectively incorporate verbal and non-verbal skills, while possibly using a visual aid, to share information with or to convey an idea to an audience. Remember: How you say something is as important as what you say.
Orient Yourself:
1. Who is my audience?
2. What is the time requirement for my speech?
3. What visual aids do I need to use?
Think Analytically
1. How relevant is my information to my audience and to my speaking topic?
2. What information do I have to support each of my ideas?
3. How does my visual aid reinforce my ideas?
Habits for success
1. Speaking portion of presentation
To help you remember the important verbal and non-verbal skills of a proper presentation, use the VOICES acronym:
V: volume--speaking loud enough, not allowing your voice to fade at the end of a sentence, avoid being monotone (use voice fluctuations)
O: organization--clear intro/body/conclusion, using transitional words between each section and between each point within the speech
I: information--ensuring your information is relevant to your topic and appropriate for your audience
C: composure/body language--standing upright, use of hand gestures and facial expressions, no repetitive movements
E: eye contact--looking at all parts of your audience, sustaining eye contact, don’t read your speech to the audience
S: standard English--grammatically correct, no repetitive terms such as “like”, “um”, "okay," etc.
2. Visual aid for presentation
I. Characteristics of effective visual aids
A. Large lettering/pictures
B. Brief amount of information and text
C. Contrast/Colorful
D. Organized—follows the chronological order of your speech
E. Uses appropriate pictures to help support your ideas/points
F. Use graphs to represent data
II. Effective usage of visual aids
A. Reinforces/supports verbal presentation
1. show the appropriate portion of your visual immediately before,
during or after your mentioning of the topic
2. your visual aid should not show information which in not covered in
your speech
B. Don’t read (verbatim) from the visual aid nor talk as you face the visual aid
C. Seamlessly and naturally fits into your presentation
III. Guidelines for using video clips
A. The time for the video should not exceed more than 15% of your speech time
B. Load the video prior to the speech so there is no “wait time”
IV. Examples:
Power Point YouTube video
Prezi—active slide show Empressr
Glogster—electronic posters Xtimeline
Animoto—images with sound Google Earth
Videos to watch for presentation skills
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt8YFCveNpY (time--3:25)
watch the difference in the woman’s verbal/non-verbal skills from her 1st to 2nd speech
2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i68a6M5FFBc (time--2:54)
this video gives great ideas for general presentation tips including visual aids
3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAfThre5lv4 (time--7:52)
this video discusses what to build your speech around in order to help your audience remember the point of your presentation
4) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5WT2vweFRY (time--6:10)